pages

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

A bit more Paris Breakfasts ancient history, since you loved the Bocuse story...I got involved with The James Beard Housebecause I fell in love with fancy plating while at a French spa,Les Pres D'Eugenie les Bains...I took a tour visiting New York's top restaurant kitchens when I returned.The leader suggested I volunteer at the Beard House so I could learn to plate on the spot.

This chef is 'plating' = creating beautiful plates for the diners and he's making sure every plate is perfect and delectable.That's how I joined the Beard parsley chopping brigade... The chefs perform in the kitchen like theater. They dance around like Baryshnikov, working in unison and I loved sketching them. But plating is HARD WORK, and first chance I got, I switched to shooting the chefs. Watching the chefs move around is like being at a life drawing class... I was dying to draw them! As soon as I got home I'd start sketching and next day I'd shoot off my sketches via fax into the chef's kitchens. I became the Toulouse Lautrec of the kitchen. I met every chef in chefdom and I got to draw them too!But painting those chefs caused me such weltschmerz /world-pain. Finally a week before the portrait show opened I figured it out. Painted multi-drawings on a toned ground a bit like old master drawings.I loved painting chefs from the back especially...so much character revealed from the back.I almost forgot! Part of the hard work of photographing the chefs dancing in the kitchen, was shooting these gorgeous plates. ANDeating them. The top dish is a roasted peach filled with berries and ice cream. The bottom dish looks like fish + chips, but is really Rattlesnake + chips.All part of the job of shooting the chefs. More on my brilliant careers to come...

One of those posts of yours one can't savour enough in only one sitting (I don't mean on this sofa!.For now, I know which paintings are my favorites: the multi-drawings on a toned ground a bit like old master drawings.

Carol, I think that drawing of the dishwasher is just fantastic.I bet you could get a deal with a home decorating company or perhaps Hallmark or a poster company to have it printed and sold in every Wal-Mart in the world. It's got great color, and the topic is so humorous it will appeal to everyone that has a kitchen! You go girl!

I agree with Merisi, those drawings on toned paper are fabulous. Very dynamic with the simple lines and the strokes of white. Your line is vey T-Lautrec in these.Can't imagine how much fun it must have been drawing these chefs!

I too like the dishwasher, but I am also surprised that nowadays there are plates being washed by hand like this! In my brother's restaurant those plates end up in big automatic dishwashing machine and the are spic&span in ten minutes.Do you know why there's still handwashing going on? Considering that electricity also costs a whole lot less in the USA.Happy Fourth of July, miss the Mall and the Beach Boys concert there.

I always find one of the most entertaining questions to ask people I'm getting to know is "what is the wackiest job you've ever had?" It invariably brings on a good story. I have a few of my own, but yours are great, CArol.

ParisBreakfast Letters

♥carol gillott♥

l'Ile Saint Louis, Paris, Ile de France, France

Hi I'm Carol Gillott,
My Mom taught me watercolors at 5. I'm still at it on l'Ile Saint-Louis In Paris. Subscribe to my watercolor Paris letters and maps on Etsy and enjoy a Parisian souvenir in your mailbox every month. Savor with a hot chocolate and croissant.
I paint Paris dreams.